The advent of cloud-based computing architectures has opened new possibilities for the rapid and scalable deployment of virtual Web stores, media outlets, social networking sites, and many other on-line sites or services. In general, a cloud-based architecture deploys a set of hosted resources such as processors, operating systems, software and other components that can be combined together to form virtual machines. A user or customer can request the instantiation of a virtual machine or set of machines from those resources from a central server or cloud management system to perform intended tasks, services, or applications. For example, a user may wish to set up and instantiate a virtual server from the cloud to create a storefront to market products or services on a temporary basis, for instance, to sell tickets to or merchandise for an upcoming sports or musical performance. The user can subscribe to the set of resources needed to build and run the set of instantiated virtual machines on a comparatively short-term basis, such as hours or days, for their intended application.
Typically, when a user utilizes a cloud, the user must track the software applications executed in the cloud and/or processes instantiated in the cloud. For example, the user must track the cloud processes to ensure that the correct cloud processes have been instantiated, that the cloud processes are functioning properly and/or efficiently, that the cloud is providing sufficient resources to the cloud processes, and so forth. Due in part to the user's requirements and overall usage of the cloud, the user may have many applications and/or processes instantiated in a cloud at any given instant, and the user's deployment of virtual machines, software, and other resources can change dynamically over time. In cases, the user may also utilize multiple independent host clouds to support the user's cloud deployment. That user may further instantiate and use multiple applications or other software or services inside or across multiple of those cloud boundaries, and those resources may be used or consumed by multiple or differing end-user groups in those different cloud networks.
In terms of the administrative capture of a user's resource consumption history and the metering, billing, and other subscription consequences that result from recording that information, in conventional cloud platforms or other virtual platforms, the consumption periods or intervals over which user activity may be tracked may be set or configured at fixed or regular intervals, such as fifteen minutes or one hour periods. Moreover, in conventional systems, those intervals may be configured or set to start at default time points, such as every hour on the hour or others, and those intervals may not be adjusted or offset. In such situations and others, a user whose resource consumption history demonstrates bursty activity that crosses or straddles those default intervals may therefore not be assessed any over-consumption fees or receive any other subscription consequences, even if the consumption or other events would exceed subscription limits if the time periods were aligned to start at different time points.
It may be desirable to provide systems and methods for detecting resource consumption events over sliding intervals in cloud-based network, in which an administrator and/or other user can select or configure the time periods for a user's consumption tracking to be translated or shifted to different starting and ending time points, and consequently produce different groupings of consumption events depending on how the time periods are translated.